


the past is behind you

by excelxiors



Category: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Delusions, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, boris overdoses on heroin and then goes through withdrawal, its sad and pretty graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 02:21:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20789000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/excelxiors/pseuds/excelxiors
Summary: you need to forgive yourself for the things you regret doing and just promise yourself you’ll do better





	the past is behind you

**Author's Note:**

> so this one is really long huh? this fic is sad and i tried my best to be accurate with how withdrawal works but i think the timeline is a bit off. also the end sucks because my brain is empty.
> 
> tw for graphic depictions of the body during withdrawal so like.. bodily fluids and all that.. also pretty graphic self harm.

It happened back in New York. Months after Amsterdam, months after Antwerp, months after Boris agreed to come home with me. We had stayed with Hobie for a little while (he clearly delighted in watching us interact, later telling me that we reminded him of himself and Welty, decades earlier), and then we had bought our own little place not too far away. I apologized to everyone. Kitsey, first and foremost, for leaving during the party and for being so cold towards her and for not loving her very much at all. She accepted my apology, saying that she herself had not been overwhelmingly kind. It was true, of course, but telling Mrs. Barbour that the wedding was off had been hard. She was understandably upset but tried to be kind about the situation, and I made a vow to myself to visit her and the family whenever I could. After everything she had done for me, it was the least I could do. Hobie hadn’t been difficult to apologize to. He was worried when I disappeared without a word, but seeing me again had been enough to reassure him that I was alright. After my apologies, I did what I came back to New York to do: buying up all the phony antiques I sold and making an honest living as Hobie’s business partner, without lying this time. With the reward money from the paintings it wasn’t hard to do.

It happened on a normal day. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary, just a regular Thursday working with Hobie at the shop. Selling his beautiful restored pieces and not lying about what they were. Telling him I’d see him tomorrow, hugging him goodbye, giving Popchyka customary head pat, and closing the shop early. Walking the couple of blocks to our apartment like I did every day, running up the stairs from the lobby to the 3rd floor, opening the door, and taking off my shoes. “Boris,” I called out, “I’m home. What are you doing?” No answer. It wasn’t entirely unusual. Though he was usually home when I got back, sometimes he’d slip out. He had his own life, after all, and I tried not to get too caught up in it. After a quick trip to the bathroom, I went into our bedroom to change into something more comfortable (dressing nice for customers had its perks, but comfort wasn’t necessarily one of them) and finally lay down after a day’s worth of work. That wasn’t what happened.

Boris was laying on the bed. He looked asleep at first glance, but with closer inspection I could see that his lips were blue and that the pale, milky white skin of his face was tinged with blue as well. “Boris,” I panicked. “Boris, are you alright?” I immediately forgot everything in the world other than Boris, hopping onto the bed to get a closer look at him. He was out cold, his skin clammy to the touch. “Boris, please.” I was begging, slapping his face and shaking his shoulders to try and wake him. In my panic, I couldn’t understand what had happened. Why my Boris, generally so full of life and energy, looked minutes away from death. I put my head to his chest, listening for a heartbeat or a breath. Anything. His heart was beating, albeit slower than it should have been, and he was breathing, though it sounded like something was stuck in his throat. “Boris. Boris, wake up. Wake up, please!” I had begun to scream. His breaths had sounded so labored that I tried to lift him into a sitting position to alleviate some of the pressure on his chest, but he was dead weight. His body was completely limp, and far too heavy for me to move alone. The struggle of trying to lift Boris had exhausted me, and I slumped back against the wall to take just a moment to breath. That was when I noticed something and it all finally came together, the whole terrible picture. A syringe on the ground, next to a spoon and a lighter. The scene was seared into my brain: Boris desperately trying to get a fix, to get the high he needed to feel normal after years of shooting up. I fumbled in my pants for my phone, shaking as I dialed 911.

“911, what’s your emergency?” said a calm, female voice on the other side of the line.

“I need an ambulance, I think my boyfriend is dying!” I was crying, almost screaming to the woman on the line. I had never told a stranger that Boris was my boyfriend, and saying the word out loud was startling. It was all too much, thinking about what might happen to Boris. “Please, help.”

“Sir, what happened?” 

“He overdosed. Heroin, I think? I need someone to come now, I can’t help him!”

“Try and remain calm, sir. An ambulance is on the way.” I couldn’t possibly remain calm in a situation like this, so I just laid down next to Boris, cradling his cold, blue face, and waited for the ambulance to arrive. I tried my best to give the operator the rest of the information she needed. Where we were, what his name was, a list of other questions that didn’t matter when Boris was here dying. It felt like a lifetime, and all I could think about was what I could have done differently. Gotten home earlier, called 911 earlier, forced Boris into rehab against his will. Anything I could have done so that I wouldn’t have been there then, holding Boris as he died and waiting for the paramedics to come and save him. It took too long. It was minutes before they arrived, and all I could do was sit there. I had his head in my lap, peppering his face with little kisses. I didn’t know if he could feel them or if he was even conscious, but I prayed that he could. That if he didn’t make it, the last thing he felt was my lips on his.

When the paramedics finally arrived they pulled Boris out of my lap and onto a stretcher where I couldn’t reach him. I heard them talking, confirming what I had suspected. Heroin overdose, and by the looks of it, a bad one. It felt like a dream: Boris on a stretcher, the paramedics mumbling to one another, a shot of Narcan into his thigh. They whisked him away, out of the building and into the back of an ambulance. I couldn’t get to him. I think I may have been screaming, but it was all too chaotic to remember. I just know they wouldn’t let me in the ambulance, and that I had to find another way to the hospital. It was too far to run and I didn’t have a car, so I had to hail a taxi. The taxi driver stayed quiet as I told him where I needed go with tears in my eyes, trying my hardest to hold back sobs.

Arriving at the hospital was a whole different beast entirely. Since Boris had just arrived in an ambulance, the receptionist at the front desk of the emergency room had been unable to give me a room number. “I’m sorry, no visitors are allowed until the patient is put in a permanent room,” she explained to me. “You can wait here and I’ll tell you when?”

“I just need to know if he’s alright. He’s probably in there right now, can I just go there and stay with him?” I was begging her. “Please, his name is Boris Pavlikovsky. Can I just go and see if he’s okay?”

“I’m sorry, sir. If he’s been taken in for emergency medical care, I can’t let anyone who isn’t immediate family visit until he’s been placed in a room. What is your relation to Mr. Pavlikovsky?”

“He’s my boyfriend. He’s family.” It was the second time in that day that I had told someone I didn’t know that Boris was my boyfriend. I didn’t know what else to call us. If we weren’t boyfriends then what were we?

“I’m really sorry. I’m not allowed to let you go.” She did seemed genuinely sorry, but I couldn’t help but wonder why she couldn’t just bend the rules. “I’ll keep an eye on it though, and tell you when.”

I slumped down onto one of the chairs. “Alright, thank you,” I told her. If I thought the few minutes waiting for the ambulance to arrive were hard, waiting nearly an hour for the receptionist to flag me over to her desk was torture. When she finally did, I ran over with a great sense of relief, though I suppose she could have given me bad news.

“He’s stable. He hasn’t been placed in a permanent room yet, but I’ll have a nurse come around and show you where he is.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” A nurse did come around, opening the door to the emergency room and showing me down a hallway full of temporary rooms. On the outside of one of the doors was a paper stuffed into a plastic compartment with what I can only assume were medical documents. Written across the top in messy handwriting was: Pavlikovsky.

“He probably won’t look so great,” the nurse told me. “They had to give him a second dose of Narcan on the ride over, his breathing and heart rate had slowed so much that the first dose didn’t do much. He’s lucky you called when you did. A few minutes longer and he probably would’ve been a goner. You can go in if you want.”

“Yeah,” I breathed out, “I will. Thank you.” Boris was laying on his side, his back turned away from the door. When he heard it open he moaned, probably a sign that he didn’t want any visitors after the hour he spent being brought back from the dead. He was hooked up to an IV, and to a myriad of other machines surrounding his bed. “Boris?” I asked tentatively, waiting at the door.

“Potter?” His voice was weak, and he sounded almost surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean?” He was still facing away from me. “Can I come in?”

“Sure, but I don’t really want to talk.” He scooted over, making as much room for me as he could on the tiny bed. An invitation.

“That’s alright.” I got in next to him, putting my face in his hair and wrapping my arm over his waist, the way he used to do to me when we were kids. “I was so worried, Boris.” My tears were soaking his hair, and all I could think to do was hold him tight and kiss the back of his neck. He still hadn’t looked me in the eyes, and when I kissed his neck, he sighed. “What’s wrong?”

“I said I don’t want to talk. I can’t right now, I’m so tired.”

“Sleep, then. Do you want me to stay?”

“Yeah,” he whispered, “stay.” I laid there for a while, my arms around Boris as he slept. I couldn’t even imagine how exhausting the whole ordeal had been for him. The overdose, the ambulance ride, not knowing where he was or what was happening. We stayed like that for a few hours, as they monitored Boris’ vitals and prepped a more permanent room for him to spend the rest of his hospital visit in. When the doctor finally came in, I sat up and whispered “He’s sleeping. Can it wait?”

“We’d rather not wait, there’s people who need these rooms.”

“Okay so where is he supposed to go?” At the time, I wasn’t sure what the hospital would do. Boris had been hooked on all sorts of drugs for half of his life, with no signs of improvement and no apparent desire to stop.

“We’re going to take him to the general population and monitor his withdrawal symptoms. We can give him stuff to make the experience less painful, but it isn’t going to be nice. I’m glad he’s got someone to support him through that.” She began to move the equipment around Boris’ bed, rolling the stuff towards the door to take it out of the room before rolling Boris’ bed out too. I followed her into an elevator, out into a hallway, and into one of the hospital’s permanent rooms. It was a white, antiseptic space that I knew Boris would hate. He somehow managed to sleep through moving his bed, and I hoped he’d sleep a little longer. Once he woke up, I knew I would have to tell him what they’d planned. For him to come off heroin in the hospital, suffering the withdrawal symptoms I knew he was terrified of. Once the doctor left I got back into the bed with Boris, listening to him breath. His breathes were easier now, the gurgling sound completely gone and replaced with a gentle exhale. He still looked sick, though. His pale skin was devoid of even more color than usual, and he was clammy to the touch. Early withdrawal symptoms, probably the reason he had overdosed in the first place. Shooting up more than he ever should have in an attempt to make those feelings go away.

I knew Boris’ calm wouldn’t last long. About 20 minutes after the room move, he woke up moaning. “Potter, why are we still here? What happened?” He finally rolled over to look at me, resting his head on my chest.

“You don’t remember?”

“Not really. I remember waking up on the ambulance, the machines, the people around me. But I do not know. Why are we here?” he asked again, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. 

“You overdosed, Boris. I found you passed out on the bed. You were barely breathing and you wouldn’t wake up. I didn’t know what to do.” Talking about it was painful, and talking about it to Boris was even worse. He didn’t like to bring it up. The darker parts of his existence were off limits, particularly his heroin use. 

“Why did you call the ambulance? I hate the doctors, Potter, you know this.”

“You were dying,” I whispered. “The doctor told me if I had waited 5 more minutes you would have been gone.”

“You should not have called,” Boris answered. 

“You know I had to. I couldn’t just let you die there, Boris. I love you.” I kissed the top of his head. His dark curls were sweaty and sort of gross, but none of it mattered. He was here with me now.

“So when can we leave? I just want to go home.” This was what I had been dreading. He sounded tired even though he had just woken up, and defeated, too. Defeated in a way that I wasn’t used to hearing Boris sound. 

I took a deep breath before saying, “We aren’t going, Boris. We’re gonna stay until the withdrawal is finished, and then we’ll go home.”

Boris immediately jumped, getting up off the bed and ripping the IVs out of his arms. “No, no. I will not stay here, I don’t want to do it. You know this.” He had gone from slurring his words in exhaustion to frantic in the span of a few seconds. 

“Boris, please,” I begged. “It’ll be better here. You don’t want to go to an impatient treatment center, I won’t be there. At least here I can be with you.”

“I want to go home, Potter. No hospitals at all. I’m not crazy, I don’t need to be here. I’m fine now, I can go home.”

“Please, calm down. Come here.” I got up, putting my arms around Boris and holding him tight. “Nobody said you were crazy.” I kissed his jaw, then his lips. “You can finally get clean, Boris. It’ll be good.”

“I’m so scared.” I could barely hear the words, they were so quiet. “I don’t want to do it. The withdrawal is bad, and it’s going to hurt, and I don’t want to do it.” He was shaking a bit now, forcing the words through tears.

“Yeah, I know. But it’ll be better here than at home. They can give you stuff, make it a little less horrible. I’ll be here, too. I’ll stay as long as you want me to.” I rubbed circles onto his back, holding him as he cried.

Boris pulling out his IVs must have triggered some alarm, because a nurse walked in shortly after, asking what had happened. I had told her that Boris freaked and pulled all the wires connecting him to the machines off, but that he was okay now, and that she could hook him back up. He agreed, laying down and looking away as she stuck his arm. He was hooked up to a bunch of wires on both his chest and arms, probably to monitor his heart rate and oxygen levels as well as give him fluids. When she left, I joined him on the bed again. He still had tears in his eyes.

“Hey. Boris, it’s going to be alright.” I cupped his face with my hands, wiping his tears away and kissing him gently. “You’re so strong. You can do this, I promise.”

“Yes, I just don’t want to,” he answered. “Have been through worse, probably, but it will not be good. I really don’t want to go through all of it.”

“I know. I know you don’t. But once it’s over you’ll be so much better off. Healthier and happier. Right?”

“I already feel sick, Potter.” He looked sick, too. He closed his eyes, the way people do when they’re trying to stave off pain, and took a shaky breath. I soon realized it wasn’t pain he was trying to stave off, but his nausea. It hadn’t worked. He began to vomit, all down his chin and on hospital gown. He groaned, in pain maybe, but more likely in embarrassment at the first real symptom of his withdrawal. “I am sorry. I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“It’s nothing. You’ve seen me worse, Boris.” I helped him into a sitting position, which caused him to vomit again. It was pooling in his flimsy hospital gown, the sharp and sour smell of bile in the air. “Let me help you take it off.”

“No, I can do it myself.” I knew it would get worse, and that eventually he probably would need my help, or a nurse’s, so I didn’t fight back, even though I knew that it would be easier and faster if I helped. It took him a little while to peal off the hospital gown without getting vomit on the bed, and once he did he was lying in front of me completely naked. He folded in on himself into a fetal position, moaning again. “I think I’m dying,” he said.

“You’re not dying. I promise, you’re going to be okay.” It was probably muscle cramps, his stomach tightening up after violently expelling all of the bile in his system. “Come take a shower, it’ll feel good to be under the water after everything.” I helped him up, walking to the small hospital shower with my arms around him. I’d obviously seen him naked before, but now his nakedness was startling. He looked thinner than I remembered, his ribs prominent and his stomach hollowed. I sat him down on the little chair in the shower, moving the shower head out of the way to make sure the temperature was okay before turning the water towards him. I hadn’t gone back home, and I didn’t think to bring toiletries in my panic, so we were stuck with the hospital’s cheap two in one shampoo, which I poured into my hands and rubbed into Boris’ sweaty hair.

“You do not have to wash my hair. I am alright, Potter.”

“Shh, don’t worry about it,” I whispered. “I want to.” I massaged the shampoo in, a strangely intimate act, before bringing the shower head down to wash it out more easily. “Stand up and wash your body?” Boris nodded, grabbing the hospital issued bar soap and rubbing it over his chest and arms. He was doing fine until another muscle cramp must have hit him, and he slipped down to the floor.

He saw me jump back in panic and bend down to grab him, respondng with “Do not worry, is okay.” He grabbed onto the stool, struggling to get back up with the slippery surface of the shower floor under his feet, and I caught him as he almost fell for a second time. I sat him down, helping him wash the rest of his body before shutting off the water and going to grab him a towel. In the minute I was away, I heard him moan again. “I’m sorry,” he said, at a volume I could barely hear from across the room. I couldn’t see him yet, but coming back into the bathroom it was obvious what had happened by the smell alone. He had shit himself, diarrhea pouring down the back of his legs and sitting stagnant at the bottom of the shower. He was shaky, and kept apologizing out loud, over and over. Maybe to me, maybe to himself, maybe to some higher power. I couldn’t tell.

“It’s alright. Calm down, Boris. We can clean it up, it’s only in the shower. Better here than out there.” I turned the water back on, and Boris grabbed the soap to clean himself as the shit ran down his legs and to the drain. I kept the water on his back and legs until it ran clean and the smell was mostly gone from the room. “Here,” I said, wrapping him with the towel. “You just need to lay down.” I got Boris into a new hospital gown and back into bed, kissing him through it all. Once we were laying back down, I told him “I love you so much, Boris. Thank you for staying here.”

He turned away from me, like he had before. He didn’t want to make eye contact. “This is why I didn’t want to do this,” he admitted. “Now I am like child and you have to take care of me.” Because he was only wearing a hospital gown, Boris’ entire backside was visible to me. I kissed his neck and rubbed the small of his back as he said “I hate it. I feel sick, and it only just started, Potter. I will be grown man shitting himself like baby for a week. Might was well put me in a diaper so I don’t fucking shit the bed. I don’t want the nurse to have to clean me because then I feel like invalid, but if you have to clean me I feel horrible too. Like I have lost all my dignity in the world.” He was crying, his voice shaking as he spoke. His body was shaking too, craving the heroin that had nearly killed him.

“Please,” I said gently, “look at me when I tell you this. It’s important.” Boris turned around, but focused his eyes on my chest and not my face. I grabbed his face gently, stroking his cheekbone as I told him “I’m here because I love you, Boris. Whatever happens, I’m going to stay until it’s over. And I don’t mind taking care of you. After everything you’ve done for me, it’s the least I can do. You cleaned my puke more times than I can count, and I’m sure there’s times I don’t even know about. Blackout drunk, remember? And that’s just when we were kids. You did so much for me, not because anyone forced you to but because you’re a good person. And I’m trying to be a good person, too. I love you more than anything in the world, and if that means cleaning up your shit for a week then so be it. Because you deserve to get better, and you deserve recovery and you deserve happiness.”

“You are too good for me.”

“No, I’m not.” It was late, past midnight. Maybe 9 hours after I had found Boris in the apartment nearly dead. “I really don’t want to leave you, but I think maybe I should go back to the apartment and grab some stuff? Just some clothes for us, soap, toothbrushes, that sort of thing. Try and sleep, maybe? I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise.” Leaving Boris was the last thing I wanted to do. The thought of being away from him now terrified me, but going to grab the things we needed before he got too bad sounded like a good idea.

“Yes, go. I will be here, probably puking my guts out.” He saw my look of concern and laughed weakly. “Is okay, just joke.” I gave Boris a deep kiss before getting out of the tiny bed, standing at the door for a minute before promising I’d be back soon, and walking fast down the hallway. I intended to keep that promise.

After taking a taxi back to the apartment, I walked quickly to the bathroom to grab our toiletries, and then into the bedroom. It was exactly as it had been after the ambulance arrived, completely untouched by anyone since then. The place was a wreck, Boris’ syringe still on the ground. I threw away the drug paraphernalia in a rush, praying that Boris would never need any of it again, and got some clothes together. Pajamas, underwear, socks. A couple of comfortable outfits. Stuffing it into a bag with the toiletries, I ran out of the apartment, hailed a taxi, and was back at the hospital in less than half an hour. 

Walking fast down the halls at night was strange. Nurses and doctors on the night shift stared, and I was glad to be back in the room by Boris’ side and away from their glances. I entered quietly, hoping Boris had fallen asleep, but he hadn’t. Instead, he closed his eyes when he saw me and said “It happened again, Potter.” He didn’t specify what, but I knew. This time, though, he had shit the bed. 

I flagged a nurse and asked if she could replace the sheets, while I took Boris into the shower to clean him off again. It had only been around an hour since the last shower, and it was the early hours of the morning, but the thought of Boris feeling any more demoralized than he already was broke my heart. I took out the fancy body wash we had at the apartment, and helped Boris as he washed himself off. “This will just keep happening,” he said. “I will not be able to shower every time.”

“I know, but I want you to at least be clean before you sleep.” I rubbed the soap onto his back, then rinsed it off with the shower head. “And I brought some of your pajamas from home if you don’t want to sleep in the hospital gown.”

“I think maybe it is better to not ruin my clothes,” he said. “Not until this part is over.”

“Okay.” As I helped him out of the shower, he leaned over the toilet to vomit. “Have you eaten anything?” I asked.

“I will just puke it up or shit it out.” He exhaled. “Even water. And I am not hungry at all.” 

“Alright, do you wanna try and sleep? It’s late.”

“Yes, I will try. You will not leave?”

“No, Boris. I won’t leave, I promise.” After I got Boris back onto the bed, I pulled the couch in the room close to the bed, so I could be as close to him as possible without squeezing next to him. We had squeezed in beds before, but the twin sized cot was far too small for us to sleep in together now that we were fully grown. He held out his hand, and I gave it a tight squeeze. “Goodnight, Boris. I love you.”

My back hurt bad the next morning, a sign that the too stiff couch was clearly not meant to be slept on. I had woken up at around 6 am, when a nurse came in to check on Boris and got out of bed shortly after, when Boris got up to commence vomiting into the toilet. When I sat down next to him the only thing I noticed was that he looked worse. His skin was clammy, his hair was matted down from sweat, and his nose was dripping. “Did you sleep alright?” I asked tentatively.

“Tossing and turning all night, Potter. Did not sleep much, but when I did I was dreaming. Of Las Vegas, and you, and my father. I want this to stop already. I just need a little bit, it is in my drawer at home. Just a little to make this go away, and then I will stop.” He was desperate, pleading with his eyes.

“I’m not going home to get you heroin, Boris. I’m going to call Hobie and ask him to throw it all away.”

“No, please! Please, I just need a little.” He was vomiting again, his hands on the sides of the toilet and his face resting against the cool porcelain of the seat. He must have been hot, because he had sweat through his hospital gown. 

“I’m not going to let you do that, and you know it. You’re this far, let’s just stick it out.” I rubbed his neck as he vomited, hands running through his sweaty hair. It was like that for hours. Boris, vomiting into the toilet bowl as I rubbed his neck. Occasionally, Boris recoiling and closing his eyes in embarrassment as diarrhea ran down his legs and onto the bathroom floor, as I quietly left to find someone who could clean up the mess. The nurse was in and out, checking in on him and giving him medication for the nausea and diarrhea that did little to help his situation. By the end of the day, I was surprised that Boris even had anything left in his system to expel, but the vomit and diarrhea continued on and off until nearly midnight, when Boris fell back against the bathroom wall.

“I am so tired, Potter,” he said to me, his voice hoarse from vomit. “Think I should shower, but don’t know if I can stand up.”

“Sit on the stool, then. It’s there for a reason.” I pointed at the little seat in the shower, and Boris nodded softly. He took off his sweat drenched hospital gown and threw it to the ground, stepping inside the shower carefully before sitting down. He took the entire shower that way, sitting with his back resting on the wall as used the shower head to rinse him off. I had to help him more this time, washing his hair like I did before but also lathering the soap all over his body. He was weaker than I had ever seen him, and he quickly resigned to let me help. “All clean,” I told him, shutting off the water. “Wanna just sleep in a pair of boxers? You’re sweating through everything, I think the less you wear the better.”

“That’s fine.” He really seemed exhausted, collapsing down into his bed as soon as he got his underwear on. “Turn the light off, I will try and sleep.”

“Alright. Sleep well, I love you.” I gave him a kiss on the forehead before shutting off the lights and laying down on the couch.

Sleep came easy, but didn’t last long. I was abruptly awoken, hearing a panicked voice yell, “_Nyet, nyet!_” Boris was frantic, switching between Russian and English. I rolled over to look at the clock. 4:17 am. I got up off the couch, rubbing my eyes and yawning before approaching Boris. “_Ne podkhodi blizhe! _Don’t come any closer!” He was scared, wrapping his arms around his chest to protect himself. “_Nyet, papa!_” I didn’t know much Russian, but I suddenly knew what was happening. I could understand those words. He was begging his father to stay away from him, telling him to not come any closer, and in his delusional state he either thought I was his father or that his father was next to me.

“Boris, listen. I’m not him,” I pleaded, hoping to get through to him.

“_Prekrati eto!_” 

“Boris, it’s me, it’s Theo!” I tried to approach him, but every time I did he panicked, scooting further away from me. “Theodore Decker!”

“_Pozhaluysta, papa!_” He was crying now, “Don’t hit me, please!”

“Boris I would never hurt you. I promise, I would never hurt you. I love you so much.” He didn’t seem to see me at all or to be listening to anything I said, so I did the only thing I could think of, which was to run over to him and wrap him in my arms. He tried to fight me off, but once he realized that I wasn’t hurting him at all he calmed down. “Shh, it’s okay. It’s just me.” A callback to our childhood, something that might bring him back to reality.

“Potter?” He was clearly confused. “Where am I?”

“The hospital, Boris.” I still had my arms around him, holding tight. I pressed a kiss to his sweaty temple.

“In Las Vegas? What happened?”

“No, in New York. You overdosed, we’re here to help you get better.”

“Why are we in New York? When did we get here?” He didn’t seem aware of the situation, perhaps thinking himself to be a child again. 

“We live here, Boris. In our apartment, remember?” I was trying to be as gentle with him as possible, reminding him of our life together. The life we made for ourselves in New York.

“I don’t know.” He looked confused. Aware that he should know, but worried about the fact that he didn’t. 

“Try and sleep, Boris. It’ll be better when you wake up tomorrow. I promise.” I loosened the grip, letting him out of my arms. “Are you cold?” I asked, since he was in only a pair of thin boxers. He shook his head no. “Okay, then you should sleep.” He nodded, though he seemed completely out of it, then got into bed, curled up into the fetal position, and fell asleep. I followed soon after.

Boris’ episode of delusion and panic frightened me greatly, as I had never seen him lose touch with reality the way he did during those 10 minutes. The next day, though his vomiting and diarrhea had become manageable, and though he knew that I was me and that we were in New York, Boris began to terrify me in an entirely new way. 

He woke me up with his crying, telling me “I did not sleep well last night, Potter. I don’t know what I did.”

“What do you mean you don’t know what you did?” I asked gently. I knew Boris was in a sensitive emotional state. Three days into withdrawal meant his cravings were rampant and his moods were swinging wildly.

“I hurt myself, I think?” He held his arms out for me to see, and where there were usually faint track marks I saw bloody holes. It looked as if he had dug into the marks with something sharp, creating craters over twice the size of the scars that usually littered his arms. “I don’t know what happened?” He phrased it like a question, like he genuinely didn’t know how the marks had gotten there.

“You did it to yourself?” I whispered, and he nodded. “With what?”

“Razor blade, when you were sleeping. Dug the corner into the holes, I needed to let the blood out.”

“Why did you need to let the blood out?” He still seemed not quite in touch with reality, but I desperately didn’t want to get him sent to the psych ward, so I kept it all quiet. Made sure he was under the blanket and pretended it all was fine when the nurse came in to check on him.

He began to cry harder, wiping away tears as he said “To feel something? I need to feel something, Potter. I feel so numb without the drugs, it makes me wish I were dead. I need to do a pop but I can’t get it here, so I need to feel something else. Anything else, before I slit my wrists and end it, Potter.”

“Boris.” I didn’t know what else to say. I knew heroin withdrawal could create depression so strong the addict was drawn to suicide, but I had always figured Boris couldn’t feel that way. Boris laughed off his trauma, and even when he let it affect him it was never nearly this bad. “We just need to get through today.”

“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t do it anymore, this whole thing.”

I kissed his head, whispering “You’ve made it this far, I know you can make it the rest of the way. I know it.”

“I don’t want to make it if this is how I’m going to feel. I would rather be dead.” I laid down with him, and he rested his head on my chest. “I hate being me and I hate that I put myself in this situation. I hate it all.”

“There’s no use in being upset for the things you did in the past, Boris. You need to forgive yourself for the things you regret doing and just promise yourself you’ll do better. The past is behind you and you can’t change it. You can’t go back and decide to not use drugs, but you can try your hardest to never start again. It hurts, I know, but you just need to remember that we’re here for a reason. And you need to look forward to that, you need to look forward to the future. Every day it’ll be easier. And it’s hard now, but tomorrow it’ll be less, and the next day even less, until it gets easy enough that you won’t have to think about it. You know?”

“Will you just lay with me today?” he asked into my chest.

“Do you really think I’d leave you now? Of course I’ll lay with you. And soon we can go home.” 

We stayed in the same position for hours, only getting up when one of us had to go to the bathroom. Boris was finally able to keep food down, and he looked much healthier than he had the day before. He was still clammy and pale, but his skin looked less dull and he wasn’t shaking. He was finally able to put on sweatpants and a t-shirt without sweating through them, and the doctor cleared him to be discharged after one more night in the hospital as long as his symptoms kept improving. 

We spent the last night the way we spent the first two, with me on the couch pushed close to Boris’ bed. I knew he wasn’t sleeping well, a result of the withdrawal induced anxiety and insomnia, and that he probably wouldn’t sleep well for at least a week after, as he body adjusted to not having heroin in it’s system, but he got a few hours of sleep that night. Better than any of the nights before, and without any trips to the bathroom to puke or delusions interrupting his rest. The next morning, he took a shower and changed into a new set of sweatpants and a new t-shirt without any help. He still wasn’t himself, but he was able to do the things that had seemed impossible in the two days prior. He gave me a weak smile as he left the bathroom, wet curls hanging down over his forehead. Eventually, a doctor came in and explained to Boris his options for after we left: personal therapy to help discuss the trauma that had led to addiction, group therapy to foster better coping skills, follow ups to see how he was doing. All things I knew he would object to.

“They think I am crazy, Potter. That I need shrink,” he laughed.

“Nobody thinks that. It’s just to talk about yourself and any problems that happen to arise in day to day life. It might be good for you.” He didn’t seem convinced. “I go to therapy, Boris. It helps, I promise. After everything we’ve been through, sometimes you just need to talk to someone who wasn’t involved in it all.”

He sighed, “We can talk about this later.”

“Okay.” I didn’t want to push him. Even though he was visibly better, his withdrawal wasn’t finished. The doctor had made that clear. He had puked and shit himself constantly for two days, then spent the next in a clear mental crisis. It would last for at least few more days with less severe physical symptoms, and his body wouldn’t be completely used to being without heroin until next week. There was just no need for the hospital to monitor him anymore.His overdose hadn’t killed him, and the very worst of his withdrawal was over, so the responsibility of making sure Boris was alright was placed entirely on me.

I packed up the one bag I had brought, and Boris put on the clothes he had come to the hospital in. A black shirt and dark jeans, the outfit he had been wearing when I found him laying on the bed. We signed the necessary paperwork, and within an hour he was discharged. The air was crisp and the sun was bright, especially after three days of the bleach smell and fluorescent lights of the hospital. Boris took in a deep breath, and I put my arm around his shoulder. “I’m proud of you.” 

“Three days is nothing,” he said. “I’m still going through it.”

“I know. But I’m proud of you for getting this far. You’ve never done it before. That’s something to be proud of.”

Being back home wasn’t as much of a relief as I thought it would be. Our home was the same, but it all felt different. The promise of a better future for Boris echoed throughout the halls, but the knowledge that he might relapse and that we might have to start all over lurked in the back of my mind as well. He was happy to be back, though. Being able to lay in our bed instead of the uncomfortable hospital bed helped him sleep better, and being in a familiar environment eased his anxiety. I spent the next week in bed with him as he recovered, calming him when he woke up screaming and promising him that his life was well worth living. It got easier, but it was never easy. He managed to remain clean that entire time, a feat that I frankly didn’t think was possible for him. He looked healthier than he ever had, too. His skin was clear and glowing in a way that I didn’t associate with Boris one bit, the dull pallor replaced with rosy fairness.

One night, weeks after the hospital, we were laying in bed when Boris said to me, “Thank you. For making me stay in the hospital. I didn’t ever think I’d stop, and I didn’t think that anyone would care enough to make me. But you did.”

“Yeah, of course. You know you mean the world to me, right? That if I had lost you that night I don’t even know what I would have done.” I kissed him then, slow and deep. Boris was alive and breathing, and he was kissing me back, and that was more than I could have ever asked for.

I can’t speak for the future. None of us know what’s going to happen tomorrow, and the thought of that terrifies us all. But for now, I can say that Boris remained clean. Threw his drugs down the garbage disposal and watched them get incinerated, went to therapy, took it all one day at a time. Put years and years of numbing his pain with drugs behind him, and decided he would keep going despite everything he had been through. And that’s more than I could ever ask of him.


End file.
